Thanks, Andy for the post. Nostalgia is a longing for a time that never passed in a place that never existed. Or as Bob Dylan once said, nostalgia is death. Yet old photos definitely evoke nostalgia. Susan Sontag had an interesting comment on how ordinary photos, just through the process of getting old and anonymous, untethered, took on a meaning greater than what the photographer ever imagined. Perhaps that is the fate of our boxes of old negatives and slides, envelopes of Photomat prints, or thousands of digital images stored somewhere. In the meantime, I enjoy going back through my catalog, my back pages. And I wonder, is there some thread that connects all those moments that I never saw as I passed through them?
Elegiac is the right word. Beautiful.
"Nostalgia is decayed dynamite," wrote the poet Tom McGrath.
It sure does: nostalgic, melancholy, sad, and happy all at the same time.
Happy almost birthday. I have one coming up soon-ish too. And I feel like my age is catching up to me, whew!
Photography is nostalgic, like this image and your reflection. Thanks, Andy, for your illumination.
Thanks, Andy for the post. Nostalgia is a longing for a time that never passed in a place that never existed. Or as Bob Dylan once said, nostalgia is death. Yet old photos definitely evoke nostalgia. Susan Sontag had an interesting comment on how ordinary photos, just through the process of getting old and anonymous, untethered, took on a meaning greater than what the photographer ever imagined. Perhaps that is the fate of our boxes of old negatives and slides, envelopes of Photomat prints, or thousands of digital images stored somewhere. In the meantime, I enjoy going back through my catalog, my back pages. And I wonder, is there some thread that connects all those moments that I never saw as I passed through them?
It is a wonderful book. I also strongly recommend it.